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Saturday, April 20, 2013

George
Beverly Shea died a few days ago. He played Ira Sankey to Graham’s Dwight
Moody. Shea has three distinctions:

1. He lived to be 104. That’s very rare. It’s even rarer for
a man. Women typically outlive men.

2. His unrivaled vocal longevity. To judge by YouTube clips,
he was able to sing to the very end.

Part of the key to his vocal longevity was the fact that he
as a pop vocalist as well as a bass. Hymns are usually about an octave or so in
range. And as a bass, when he lost the high notes, he could simply transpose
the music down. Given, moreover, the limited range of hymns and gospel songs,
there was lots of spare room to keep transposing down before he bottomed out.

Yet it’s still remarkable that he could hold a tune, with a
firm resonant tone, past the 100-year mark.

He had a solid technique and a sturdy constitution.
Genetics dealt him a royal flush.

The only singer I can think of whose vocal longevity
approaches his is Jerome Hines. His achievement is both more and less
impressive than Shea’s. More impressive in that opera singers must sing the
music as written. Opera singers rarely have the luxury of transposing their
numbers. In her twilight years, Joan Sutherland sometimes did that, but she
could only get away with it because she was a superstar, and her husband was
the conductor or accompanist.

Moreover, opera arias have a wider vocal range than hymns.
And you have to hit the high notes. Even the lower voices are paid to hit the
high notes.

But in another respect, his achievement was less impressive,
for Shea was still singing at 100+, while Hines was still singing at a mere 80.

Mark Reizen, the Russian bass, was still singing at 90–but a shadow of his former glory.

3. However, Shea’s greatest achievement wasn’t how long he
sang, or how long he lived, but how well he lived. Pop entertainers aren’t
famous for their moral consistency. They usually have many affairs. Wreck their
own marriages, wreck other marriages.

Although he was in the public eye for 80 years, there was
never a breath of scandal attaching to his life or reputation. From what I’ve
read, he was a humble godly man, without pretense or pretension.

“Lockdown” has become an increasingly frequent term in the
news. I don’t merely mean frequency of usage, but frequency of the phenomenon
denoted by that term.

It’s not just that lockdowns seem to be more frequent, but
the scope of lockdowns is quietly and steadily expanding. At least that’s my impression.

When I was growing up (60s-70s), lockdowns were limited to
prisons when inmates rioted. At least that’s my recollection.

But more recently, you have school lockdowns when a
suspected shooter is on the loose. I understand that authorities wish to contain
the area to prevent the suspect from escaping, but in the process they are
locking students in with the shooter. I often wonder if that’s even legal. Do
school administrators (or local police) have the authority to prevent students
from exiting the building when they feel–often rightly–that their lives are
endangered by hiding huddled in classrooms as the sniper goes from room to
room, seeking fresh victims?

Be that as it may, the Boston bombing introduced a citywide
lockdown. Hotels were locked down within a certain radius of the crime scene.

What does that mean, exactly? Does that mean there were
security guards or policemen stationed at hotel exits? What would happen if you
tried to exit the hotel? Would you be arrested? Shot on sight?

Although it maybe convenient for the authorities to declare
a lockdown–the better to facilitate their manhunt–is that legal? Doesn’t that
really assume an undeclared state of martial law, where normal civil liberties
are suspended and authorities can impose a curfew on the citizens?

It looks like we’re beginning to take lockdowns for granted,
as a normal part of life, even though that’s extralegal or unconstitutional.
When did Americans agree to this? Is this an Act of Congress?

Moreover, this involves a false dichotomy. We know the
profile for likely suspects in terrorist incidents: twenty-something male
Muslim bachelors.

Why should all ordinary Americans surrender their civil
liberties to protect Muslims?

Liberals scream “racial profiling,” and unilaterally take
the profiling of Muslims off the table. That leads to the false dichotomy:
between public safety and civil liberties.

v. 27-28: But
I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to
those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who
mistreat you. (HCSB)

At
least three people are dead so far due to the terrorist bombing at the
Boston Marathon. If that fact does not make you angry, you are either
one of the perpetrators or it would seem to me that you've allowed
yourself to become desensitized to mindless killings. Remember that
being angry is not synonymous with being in a rage, screaming for
blood, seeking retaliation (let alone revenge), or engaging in some
irrational act of hate. Anger, as I've mentioned before, is one of the
emotions with which God has endowed us; he himself shows it from time to
time. There's no point in not acknowledging the fact that you're
feeling angry. Furthermore, quickly covering it up by referring to the
next segment of the passage about "turning the other cheek" may
demonstrate how pious you are, but does not make much sense in this
situation. Are we going to invite whoever these terrorists are to blow
up a few more bombs and kill and maim another bunch of people? I don't
think that's what Jesus had in mind. I've talked about the above
matters at greater length in the second edition of Neighboring Faiths,
chapter 4, which is entirely devoted to 9/11, radical Islam, and our
reaction to such acts. Having said that, I need to quickly clarify
that, as of the moment that I'm writing this, even though the event has
been officially labeled as "terrorism," it has not been linked to an
Islamic group, to the best of my knowledge. There are resemblances to bombs used in Afghanistan and Iraq, but resemblances are not evidence; they can only be leads in an investigation.

Christ's
exhortation is premised on the fact that we have enemies. When I say
"we" and look at the context, it is clear that he is talking to 1)
individuals or groups of individuals who are serious about walking in
divine righteousness and 2) who are being hated for the sake of Christ.
This is not a piece of advice to a government to abdicate its god-given
authority to carry the sword so as to bring wrath on the one who does
wrong (Rom 13:4). Nevertheless, in a democracy I am one small
constituent of the government, and I need to take that fact into
account. So, in order for me to sort out my thoughts on the incident, I
need to look at the event from a "governmental" perspective and then
deal more explicitly with the effects of Jesus' words on that point of
view.

What
most news commentaries seem to be agreeing on is that in some ways
this bombing may potentially have a worse effect on our nation's psyche
than 9/11. Such statements may possibly overreactions of the moment,
but there does seem to be a difference in terms of how invidious this
attack was. The bombs appeared to have been two pressure cookers filled
with shrapnel of various kinds. Some of the injured people have up to
forty hurtful objects spiking their bodies. These bombs are called
IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices), and according to news reports they are becoming increasingly popular,
but are quite difficult to trace. They could be the product of a major
terrorism group, such as al-Qaeda, or they could be made by your local
crackpot who wants to destroy humanity so that bats (mammals of the
order Chiroptera, not baseball implements) can rule the world.

In a rather thoughtful editorial, psychiatrist Keith Ablow makes some worthwhile points. He observes that

We are no more vulnerable today than yesterday, but we will feel more vulnerable, because we had no known hint of what was to befall us. (Emphasis mine.)

He
goes on to describe how this event will cast a shadow over many a
large gathering where people have come together simply for enjoyment.
And he is at least implying that this shadow it will not go away as
long as America is America. To quote:

Here
is the irony: We are vulnerable, because we are free and strong.
These qualities attract the ire of those who would have us shackled
and weak, who are consumed by hatred for individual possibilities,
rather than love for what a free person can dream about and strive for
and accomplish.

No
question about it: In straightforward theory, the more we allow these
incidents to limit our freedom, the less enticing it should be for
terrorists to disrupt our freedom. But, as right as Ablow may be in
the part of his analysis he provided, he does not cover the subject in
sufficient depth to rationalize even an unacceptable solution, viz. to
limit our freedom--not that he either pretends to have done so or that
such a travesty would be his point. To the contrary; he wants us to
cherish and maintain all of our freedoms. In any event, things are not
quite that simple.

Rational
theory concerning pro or con freedom certainly plays little role in
the mind of the deluded person who makes bombs to advance the cause of
the Flying Fox. And if you want to talk about the theory of Qutbism,
the main ideology behind a-Qaeda, the goal is such that there's nothing
we can do that would please them sufficiently to stop their misdeeds
on the way (the "milestones") to achieve it: to destroy every
government around the globe (including supposedly Islamic ones) by
violence so that the entire world can be governed by Shari'a directly.
Please see various posts of the past, as well as my lengthier piece on groups of Islam and, of course the book. Actually, when I say "the book," I should say "the books." I am, of course referring to Neighboring Faiths, but I also continue to plead with you to please read Seyyid Qutb's Milestones so that you can see the reality of the blueprint for yourself.

Thus, whatever we are going to do to ourselves to suspect each other, up to and including scrotal searches by TSA functionaries,
is not going to make serious differences, I'm afraid. The only thing
that I can think of that will help solve the problem is a) serious
profiling, particularly--and here's the hitch--by the so-called
moderate Islamic nations themselves within their borders; they know
better whom to trust than we do (there, I said it, and, if you are
angry at me for saying it you're making my point), and b) serious
inspections of locations around large groups of people. It would be
wrong for me to insinuate that someone should have found the bombs, but
I'm wondering if it would be wrong to consider such an insinuation.

This
is a minimal response, in my opinion, but we dare not turn our anger
into blind acts of retribution, least of all against ourselves. But
neither may we simply ignore in the name of love the horrendously
unloving acts done by some people to others. That would not be love on
our part, but the opposite of love, which is not hate, but indifference.

So
how can I make sense of the above as well as Jesus' exhortation to
love my enemies? Once again, I'm going to have to break up my
discussion into some segments. Thus: more on this topic next time.

And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you
king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. 2
Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in
opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike
Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but
kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

4 So
Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men
on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to the city of Amalek
and lay in wait in the valley. 6 Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart; go
down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed
kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the
Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7 And Saul defeated the Amalekites
from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8 And he took Agag the
king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the
edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the
sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that
was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and
worthless they devoted to destruction (1 Sam 15:1-9).

OT holy war is a favorite target of unbelievers. Mind you,
the same unbelievers who wax indignant at OT holy war generally support
abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

In light of the popular new TV drama Vikings, it’s
instructive to compare OT holy war with traditional warfare. Although Vikings
isn’t strikingly historical, I think it’s accurate with respect to what
motivated their raiding parties.

In that regard, Saul would make a great Viking.
The incentive for Viking warfare was booty. They were looters. Murderous
looters. Pillage everything of material value. Enslave the able-bodied
survivors. Rape the women. Slaughter the “useless” men, women, and children.
Burn whatever you leave behind.

By contrast, OT holy disincentivized warfare for personal
aggrandizement. Israelites did not wage holy war for plunder. They were denied
the conventional spoils of war.

I’ll make one related observation. To my knowledge, social
ethics in “primitive” cultures is mainly a tribal code of honor. Unwavering
allegiance to your kith and kin.

For instance, in primitive cultures, I don’t think rape and
adultery were considered intrinsically evil. That’s an outrage rather than a
sin.

Although it may sound counterintuitive, I suspect that in
most traditional cultures, rape doesn’t dishonor the woman so much as it
dishonors the male members of her family. Indeed, sometimes rape is committed
with that in mind. In traditional cultures, the male members of the family are
the protectors of the female members. So raping a woman is an affront to her
father, uncles, brothers, cousins–or the entire clan. A slap in the face. Look
what we did to your women! It’s an expression of dominance, not over the woman
so much as the men in her family or clan who were impotent to defend their
honor (not her honor) by defending their women.

It’s not the woman who brought shame on the family; rather,
the rapist is using the woman to shame her father, brothers, &c. They were
powerless to protect her.

I think that sort of thing underlies many classic blood
feuds. Before you had a police force, it was up to family members (mainly the
men) to protect the women and children. That reinforced the sense of in-group
solidarity and camaraderie. “You come after my brother...you come after me!”

Likewise, I suspect that adultery is similar. It dishonors
her husband. Brings shame on her husband. Consider the old literary/dramatic
convention of the cuckled husband. He can’t protect his honor.

In a similar vein, adultery was treated more harshly than
fornication because adultery blurs the lines of inheritance. That’s especially
problematic in tribal cultures where the major land holdings belong to the
clan, not the individual.

The Iliad is a good example. Agamemnon is the commander, not
because he’s the best warrior (Ajax, Achilles, and Diomedes are all better
fighters), but because he’s the tribal chieftain. Paris dishonored the Achaeans
by stealing the wife of Menelaus, who is–not coincidentally–the brother of
Agamemnon.

Conversely, Paris has endangered Troy. Yet Priam defends his
son rather than extradites his son out of family loyalty.

We can see a similar dynamic in Judges 20. In the history of
Israel, there’s a constant tension between the Mosaic covenant and the tendency
of Israelites to revert to their pagan social mores. Likewise, Islam is a throwback to tribal morality. Dishonor instead of sin.

Although the socioeconomic system of Israel was tribal, the
Mosaic law cuts against the grain of tribal morality. In the Mosaic law, some
things are wrong, not because they are shameful or dishonorable in the
sociological sense, but because they are sinful or intrinsically evil. From
what I can tell, that’s a novel concept in human history.

In his
recent commentary on Matthew, Craig A. Evans argues that Mt 27:52-53 is a
scribal gloss. If you’re going to question the historicity of this incident, I
think his approach is better than Michael Licona’s.

I’m not going to quote his argument. If you’re curious, you
can read it for yourself. Use the “search this book” feature, type Akhmim in
the search box, and it will pull up his discussion (pp466-67):

In 33 AD, Richardus Carrier,
a natural philosopher of world renown, was on the island of Capri, where
Tiberius Caesar was vacationing.

April 23, 33

Centurion: We just received report
of a mass resurrection in a Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem. A moment after the
Messiah died, the earth shook, splitting rocks. Some tombs also were opened.
And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out
of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the Jerusalem and appeared
to many.

Carrier: Nonsense! I won’t
believe it until I know who the reporter was.

April 25, 33

Centurion: My contacts tell
me the reporter was one Matthew or Levi–he goes by two different names–an
apostle and one-time tax collector.

Carrier: I won’t believe it
until I interview Matthew personally:

April 30, 33

Centurion: How did the
interview go?

Carrier: I won’t believe it
until I know who the witnesses were.

May 2, 33

Centurion: My contacts have
given me a list of names and addresses of observers who witnessed the mass
resurrection in the Jewish cemetery.

Carrier: Nonsense! I won’t
believe it until I interview the witnesses personally.

May 7, 33

Centurion: How did the
interviews go?

Carrier: Eyewitness testimony
is notoriously unreliable. I won’t believe it until I personally interview some
of the “raised saints.”

May 11, 33

Centurion: How did the
interviews go?

Carrier: I won’t believe it
until I know the saints were really dead and buried.

May 13, 33

Centurion: I just received
word from the Chief Coroner of Jerusalem that the saints were truly dead and
buried.

Carrier: Nonsense! I won’t
believe it until I see the results of DNA testing to the confirm that the
saints who were said to be raised are the very same individuals who were buried
there.

May 15, 33

Centurion: Based on DNA
samples taken both before and after the event, the Chief Coroner of Jerusalem
informs me that they are one and the same individuals.

Carrier: Nonsense. DNA
samples can be tampered with. I won’t believe it unless I can see it for
myself.

May 17, 33

Centurion: Here’s footage
from security cameras at the cemetery which show the mass resurrection.

Carrier: Nonsense!
Photographic evidence can be tampered with. And even if your photographic
evidence is accurate, how can I be sure the whole event wasn’t staged by
mischievous aliens? For all I know, the Mother Ship may be hiding behind the
moon, conveniently out of sight. I won’t believe it unless I can go back in
time to be there when it happens, so that I can see it with my own eyes:

May 19, 33

Centurion: Your butler tells
me that the Archangel Michael appeared to you yesterday and transported you
back in time and space to the Jewish cemetery, at the moment it happened.

In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a clever theologian, a good theologian — on mercy. And that book did me a lot of good, but do not think I am promoting my cardinals’ books! Not at all! Yet it has done me so much good, so much good... Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, that this word changes everything. This is the best thing we can feel: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient.... Let us remember the Prophet Isaiah who says that even if our sins were scarlet, God’s love would make them white as snow.

Now, who has made the world “cold” in the first place? Could it be anyone from the previous generation of popes? In what way did the world seem “less just”? Who is it, really, who has been working so hard for “social justice” in the world? I’m just askin’.

I remember the days when the Soviet Union was still a world power, and “Kremlinologists” would study posed photos of the leadership, to see who was standing closest to Breshnev. It was a way of understanding who was “in” and what the policy directions of the Soviet Union might be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was one of the better methods for understanding that regime at the time.

Cardinal Walter Kasper says that “Pope Francis” is going to bring new life” to Vatican II, the same “spirit of Vatican II” that Hans Küng says is needed, and that the two previous popes sought to suppress. He says that Bergoglio has “inaugurated a new phase” of Vatican II.

For those who don’t know, Kasper is a former Assistant to Küng; he was “removed in 1999 by John Paul II as the Bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart”. He was transferred to Rome, where until 2010 he was the President of the Pontifical Council on Promoting Christian Unity.

Roughly from 1999 to 2002, Kasper and Ratzinger had a “dialog” – Kasper is called a “conciliarist”, which in Medieval days, was the impulse that arose from the ashes of the “Great Schism” (when there were two and even three popes), and which opposed the imperial papacy. Conciliarism held rather (similar to the Eastern Orthodox) that councils and their doctrinal pronouncements are the highest “law of the land” in the church.

For the Eastern Orthodox, Ecumenical Councils are “extraordinary synods of bishops which primarily decide upon dogmatic formulations, especially in the face of heresy. Secondarily, they also issue canonical legislation which governs the administration of the Church.”

Kasper and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger disagreed vehemently on a point of ecclesiology. You can find that disagreement summarized here:

I’ve
been asked how suicide relates to the perseverance of the saints. There are
many potential permutations to that question, depending on how nuanced an
answer we wish to give.

i) At one level, the doctrine of perseverance means a
born-again Christian can’t lose his salvation. So unless we think suicide
results in loss of salvation, there’s no prima facie tension between suicide
and perseverance.

ii) Likewise, the doctrine of perseverance generally means a
born-again Christian will die in the faith. Even if we think suicide is sinful,
dying in sin and dying in the faith are mutually compatible. After all, every
Christian is a sinner. Every Christian dies a sinner. In that sense, every
Christian dies in a state of sin. Dying in a state of sin, and dying in a state
of grace, are mutually compatible.

iii) It isn’t even strictly necessary that a Christian be a
believer at the moment of death. There’s a sense in which senile Christians may
no longer be believers. They lack the cognitive ability to exercise faith. But
loss of faith, due to dementia, doesn’t entail loss of salvation.

iv) On the other hand, regeneration entails sanctification.
Fruits of grace. So how we live and how we die can reflect our inner spiritual
condition. We need to avoid any antinomian version of eternal security.

There’s a danger that the pendulum has swung to far in the
other direction. Rick Warren quotes his son as saying: “Dad, I know I’m going
to heaven. Why can’t I just die and end this pain?”

The doctrine of perseverance is not a license to take your
life with impunity. Not a contingency plan. That’s very presumptuous.

Although suicide is not a guarantee of damnation, suicide is
not a guarantee of salvation. It’s a fearful thing to take your own life.

vi) Is suicide always sinful? There may be hypothetical
situations in which suicide is not a sin.

Suppose an army unit dispatches a scout to scope out the
area. Suppose the scout finds himself surrounded by the enemy. He knows that if
he’s captured, they will torture him to discover the location of his unit.
Suppose he kills himself to protect his unit. That might be a case where
suicide is morally justifiable.

Let’s take a similar, but somewhat different, and perhaps
more controversial example. Suppose Christianity is illegal in a particular
country. There’s an underground church movement. This consists of
semi-autonomous cell-groups. By subdividing the underground church into
cell-groups, that makes it easier to elude detection by the authorities.
Moreover, if the authorities discover a cell-group, that won’t lead them to the
whole church.

Suppose a Christian knows that the authorities are on to
him. If they bring him in for interrogation, they will torture him to track
down the other members of his cell-group. Suppose he kills himself to spare his
fellow Christians. That might be a case where suicide is morally justifiable.

I’m not taking a firm position on that. Just considering
potential counterexamples to the facile assumption that suicide is necessarily
wrong.

Let’s take one more example. Suppose a family man is diagnosed
with terminal cancer. Suppose he commits suicide so that his family will
collect on the life insurance policy.

Now, I don’t that’s a justifiable reason to commit suicide.
However, that’s morally ambiguous compared to someone who commits suicide as an
act of revenge, to make the survivors feel guilty. So even where suicide is
culpable, there can be degrees of culpability. It’s possible to do the wrong
thing with the best of intentions. That’s different from doing the wrong thing
with malicious intentions.

vii) Apropos (vi), we also need to make allowance for
extenuating circumstances. Maybe the Christian in that situation was wrong to
take his own life. It was a snap judgment. But the fact that his actions were
in the best interests of others, the fact that he was acting under extreme
duress, even if we conclude that his actions were ill-considered, mitigates his
guilt.

Likewise, if someone commits suicide because he is mentally
ill, we usually consider that to be an extenuating circumstances or even an
exculpatory circumstance. He was in a state of diminished responsibility.

This assumes the suicide is mentally ill through no fault of
his own. In some cases, there are individuals (e.g. Ted Kaczynski, Bobby
Fischer) whose madness seems to be self-induced. They work themselves into that
mental state. But that’s probably exceptional.

viii) What about cases where suicide is sinful? Does that
seal your damnation?

Well, Christians do, in fact, commit sin. You don’t lose
your salvation by sinning. Otherwise, every Christian would be an instant
apostate.

ix) Some might say what’s different about suicide is that,
unlike other sins, that’s the very last thing you do before you die. There’s no
time for repentance.

(Actually, that depends on the method of suicide. In some
cases you might regret your rash act, but it’s too late to recover.)

This is especially significant in Catholic theology. Did you
die in a state of mortal sin? Did you have time to confess and receive
absolution?

However, that makes salvation contingent on lucky or unlucky
timing. What if I commit a sin, and a minute later I die in a traffic accident?
Am I doomed by the clock?

Monday, April 15, 2013

It is important to clarify at
the outset exactly what is being discussed. The question is the narrow one of
verbal affirmations of something one believes to be false. In this sense, Lying
is affirming in speech or writing something you believe to be false.

There are several related acts that are not included in this
definition. On this narrow definition, “lying” does not include:

(2) Nonverbal actions intended to mislead or deceive someone
(An action is something that happens; it is neither true nor false like a
verbal affirmation of something. An example is leaving a light on in our house
when we are away for a weekend – an observer may rightly conclude, “The Grudems
left a light on,” but that may or may not prove that we are at home.)

The
problem with this narrow definition is that it rigs the analysis. The
definition is prejudicial, by preemptively excluding potential counterevidence.
By definition, certain types of counterevidence no longer count as evidence.

So this
leaves Grudem open to the charge of special pleading. He’s framed the issue in
a way that automatically discounts potential defeaters for his position.

Grudem
anticipates this objection:

Of course, some may argue
against this narrow definition of lying, saying, for example, “Deceptive actions are the same thing
as lying.” But that is not a careful statement. Deceptive actions are in some
ways similar to lying (their goal is to persuade someone else to believe
something untrue) and in some ways different from lying. For example, actions
are ambiguous and can have various meanings, while verbal affirmations ordinarily
are not ambiguous. Also, the Bible treats deceptive actions and false
affirmations differently, as I will indicate below. And lying involves a
contradiction between what you think to be true and what you say, which does
not occur in deceptive actions (a difference that was very significant to
Augustine). The differences are important, and show at least that the two
categories should be analyzed separately.

I’ll
have more to say, but for now I’ll simply point out that his distinction is ad
hoc. We’re dealing with a distinction between verbal and nonverbal
communication. On the face of it, that’s not a morally principled distinction.
Rather, that merely concerns the difference between one medium and another.
Mode rather than content.

And, in
fact, as Grudem knows, you have sign prophets in Scripture who use nonverbal as
well as verbal communication.

Isn’t
the morally salient distinction between deceptive and nondeceptive
communication rather than verbal and nonverbal communication?

Likewise,
isn’t the motivation to deceive a morally salient distinction? Do you have a
licit or illicit motive?

The Bible has numerous commands
prohibiting “lying” in the sense of affirming something that you believe to be
false.

For the
moment let’s focus on prohibitions against perjury. As Grudem points out,
Biblical prohibitions with respect to “lying” are broader than perjury, but for
now let’s focus on perjury to illustrate an underlying principle.

i) The
basic flaw in Grudem’s reasoning is that he fails to take into account the
implied situation.

Indeed,
Grudem basically admits that later on, but he fails to appreciate the
significance of his admission when he says:

Therefore there is an
alternative to seeing “against your neighbor” as limiting the scope of the ninth
commandment. It seem that a better understanding is that “You shall not bear
false witness against your neighbor” is chosen as a particularly hateful
example of lying, because it is a courtroom setting where you intentionally
speak falsely against your neighbor (whom you should love!) in a way that will
cost him his goods (perhaps to your benefit) or even his life. By this God
means to show us how hateful all lying is, not merely this kind of lying.

But
that’s context-dependent. It isn’t perjury, per se, but perjury with malicious
intent, that’s forbidden.

Take a
witness who lies to either inculpate the innocent or exculpate the guilty. What
are the usual circumstances under which a witness is tempted to lie?

On the
one hand, a witness might lie about his enemy to harm his enemy, even if his
enemy is innocent in this particular instance. On the other hand, a witness might
cover for kinsman based on a tribal honor code, where you automatically stick
up for your kith and kin, even if they were in the wrong.

ii) On a
related note, keep in mind the legal framework. This is the Mosaic law. A
divinely inspired law code. By definition, the laws are just. That’s another
aspect of the implied situation.

Can we
automatically transfer those prohibitions to a legal system that is unjust? Or
does that rip them out of context?

iii) In
addition, we have many different social obligations in Scripture. The general
prohibition against perjury involves one social obligation, but there are
others we need to consider. Balancing different duties.

Let’s
illustrate these principles:

iv)
Suppose you attend a public high school. Suppose you’re chatting with one of
your classmates, who’s a friend of yours. Suppose he says something like “boys
are better at football than girls” or “homosexuals are morally depraved.”

Let’s
say his statement violates the school speech code. His statement is “sexist” or
“homophobic” according to the speech code.

Let’s
say another student overhears the offending remarks, and rats him out. He’s
hauled into the Vice-Principal’s office. He denies the accusation.

You are
also brought in and questioned. Did he say what the other student attributed to
him?

v)
What’s your duty in that situation? Like Grudem, we could simply recite the
Mosaic prohibitions against perjury. However, in all likelihood, these envision
a very different implied situation. Therefore, it’s dubious to assume that we
can simply extrapolate from the Mosaic prohibitions to a situation where your
classmate is liable to be unjustly punished based on your testimony.

And if
you tell the truth under those circumstances, you are making yourself an agent of
an unjust regime. You are directly complicit in the miscarriage of justice.

The
student wasn’t punished for wrongdoing. Rather, the punishment was the
wrongdoing. He didn’t wrong anyone. Rather, the school is wronging him. If you
witness against him, you are accessory to the injustice.

vi) In
addition, your testimony would be a breach of confidence, as well as a betrayal
of trust. Because you’re his friend, he felt it was safe to speak freely in
your presence.

So
there’s more than one potential duty in play. There’s a prima facie duty to be
a truthful witness. But in addition there’s a prima facie duty to honor a
confidence and be a trustworthy friend.

Now,
unlike the first illustration, here’s a case where, from a Christian
standpoint, he said something wrong. He doesn’t have the right attitude towards
homosexuals. In that case, should you witness against him? That raises a couple
of interrelated issues:

viii) Even
if what he said was wrong, do we want to empower a system in which all our
statements, public and private, are subject to prosecution? Where the
authorities can haul us in to interrogate us for saying the “wrong” thing?
Where we have to have to be prepared explain, defend, or retract our statements
when questioned by some “human rights commission” or whatever?

ix) On a
related note, how should we respond when people ask questions they have no
right to ask? How should we respond in a coercive situation where we are
compelled to answer? Where we are penalized if we refuse to answer? Just saying
“that’s none of your business” is not an option.

They
demand answers, so they put you in a situation where you have to say something,
even though they have no right to ask you that. They gratuitously created that
situation.

Like
Grudem, we could simply recite the Mosaic prohibitions against perjury, but the
implied situation is very different. The Mosaic law has a completely different
position on the proper role of gov’t.

The passages fall into several
categories, but none of them contains a clear lie (in the sense of a verbal
affirmation of what the speaker believed to be false) that is approved by God.
Some passages contain deceptive actions such as a military ambush at Ai (Josh.
8:3-8), a surprise attack (2 Sam. 5:22-25), or David pretending to be insane (1
Sam. 21:13). These deceptive actions do seem to be approved by God in these
passages, but these do not fall in the category of a “lie” as defined in this article.

But are such deceptive actions sufficiently different from a
“lie” (as defined in this article) so that we are justified in putting them in
a different category? I think they are,

for several reasons: (1)
Scripture treats them differently, always condemning lies but not always
condemning such deceptive actions.

Does Scripture treat them
differently because there’s a morally relevant difference between verbal and
nonverbal communication, or because the implied situations are so different?

(2) Actions are not true or false (as verbal affirmations
are), but they are just something that happens.

That’s simplistic:

i) Strictly speaking, most
actions lack truth-value. They don’t make assertions. They don’t affirm or deny
something to be the case. Grudem is right about that.

ii) However, not all actions
are “just something that happens.” A ruse de guerre is specifically
intended to deceive.

iii) In addition, Grudem
downplays the role of manual gestures in human communication, especially in some
cultures (e.g. Italian).

(3) People instinctively treat them differently: If on a
weekend I leave a light on in my house (to deter burglars by making them think
I am home) and then my neighbor bumps into me staying in a hotel in Tucson (2
hours away), the neighbor might have seen my light but will not think me to be
a liar. But if I tell my neighbor, “I’m going to stay home this weekend” and
then the neighbor bumps into me in staying in a hotel in Tucson, he will think
that I lied to him.

I don’t see that his
“instinctive” appeal survives ethical scrutiny. Yes, people may treat those
differently, but now that he brought it up, is it fundamentally different? Is
so, how so?

This is because (4) actions
have ambiguous meanings, but propositions ordinarily do not.

On the one hand, I can think of
obscene gestures whose significance is pretty unambiguous. On the other hand,
human speech is often ambiguous.

I am not saying deceptive
actions are never wrong (sometimes they surely are), but that they belong in a
distinct category, one I am not dealing with in this essay.

Do they
belong to a distinct category? That’s the very issue in dispute.

Therefore the Bible’s moral
standards regarding lying include not only the ninth commandment, but an entire
collection of Old Testament and New Testament verses that prohibit speaking
lies or falsehood. And there are many other similar verses to those listed
here, condemning things such as “lying,” “falsehood,” “liars,” and those who
“speak lies.”

I agree with him that we’re dealing with a larger principle
than perjury. But those also presuppose an implied situation.

But this would be impossible
for Jesus, who was also God, since “it is impossible for God to lie” (Heb.
6:18). Therefore, Jesus never
lied. And therefore we never have to lie either. Jesus’ own moral character,
and the truthfulness of all his words, provide additional evidence that
Scripture prohibits us from ever telling a lie. The character of God who never
lies is manifested to us in the life of Jesus, who never told a lie.

Actually,
Jesus sometimes resorts to misleading words and deeds–misleading to an
outsider:

18 Then
one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to
Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
19 And he said to them, “What things?”

28 So
they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were
going farther (Lk 24:18-19,28).

5
Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him,
Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may
eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do (Jn
6:5-6).

41 So
they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I
thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said
this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you
sent me” (Jn 11:41-42).

So
Grudem’s appeal backfires.

Did Elisha (a prophet of God)
lie to the Syrian army? He said, “This is not the way, and this is not the
city” (v. 19), but the words are actually ambiguous, somewhat enigmatic. What
way? What city? (The one where God wants them to go?) The Lord had “blinded”
them (v. 18) so they decided to follow Elisha. The statement “I will bring you
to the man whom you seek” (v. 19) is, again, somewhat enigmatic, but rather
than leaving them, Elisha did in fact bring them to a place where they
encountered him face to face.

This is by no means a clear
example of a clear falsehood approved by God. (And in any case, it was not told
to save Elisha’s life or anyone else’s life, for the Syrian soldiers were
already blinded and harmless.)

Needless to say, studied
ambiguity is a standard form of deception.

Other passages have to do with
God sending a deceptive spirit or a lying spirit to wicked unbelievers (1 Kings
22:19-23; 2 Thess. 2:11), and these passages raise difficult questions about
God’s providential use of evil agents to carry out judgment, but they do not necessarily
show God’s approval of the lies any more than God’s ordaining that evil people
would crucify Christ (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28) shows that God approved of their evil
deeds (he did not: Acts 2:23).

Well, that’s pretty facile. God
assuredly approves of his own actions. God is deceiving the wicked through a
third party.

It must be said that real-life
situations are always more complex, and offer more options, than a hypothetical
situation sketched in a sentence or two in an ethics textbook. For example, telling the truth
and lying are not the only options, since silence is always an option (though
it may lead to suffering, as with the bishop that Augustine used as an
example).

i) Silence is
counterproductive. The interrogator will interpret your silence as guilty
silence. You have something to hide. That confirms his suspicions.

ii) It’s not only or primarily
a case of whether you will suffer, but whether what you say will be misused to
make others suffer unjustly.

A fourth option is saying any
of a hundred different things that don’t answer the question asked, such as, “I
will not cooperate with any attempt to capture and kill Jewish people.” Yes,
that may mean the Nazi soldiers will force their way in and search around, but
they probably would have done that anyway. Who can say that they would even
believe the Christian if he said, “No”?

There’s more to it than “yes”
or “no”. There will be the demand for specific information regarding the
whereabouts of the Jews.

Some would argue in this situation that such evildoers, such
as murderers, had “forfeited their right to the truth.” I would probably agree
with this (at least the truth regarding the hidden Jews), and so I would not
tell them the truth (we have no general obligation to tell everything we know).
But that does not mean that I would have to lie to them either. A Christian in
that situation should immediately pray for God’s wisdom to know what to say
without lying, and without disclosing where the Jews were hidden.

I wonder if Grudem’s fallback
at this point isn’t impacted by his charismatic theology.

Some ethicists would use this
situation to argue for a “tragic moral choice,” a case where we have to do a
lesser sin (lying) to avoid a greater sin (murder, or giving aid to a murderer,
or at least not preventing a murder when we could do so). But John Frame would
disagree with this viewpoint, and so would I. This is because I agree with
Frame that there are no such tragic moral choices, where God wants us to
disobey one of his commands in order to obey another. Frame gives several
reasons for rejecting the idea that there are situations where we have to sin,
including the following:

(1) “In Scripture, we have a
moral duty to do what is right, and never to do what is wrong.” (3) This view implies
that “the law of God itself is contradictory, for it requires contradictory
behavior.” (6) Since Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are” (Heb.
4:15), this view requires that Jesus himself had to sin in some situations, but
Scripture repeatedly affirms that Jesus never sinned. (7) 1 Corinthians 10:13
guarantees that God “will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with
the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,” and this implies that
there are no tempting situations so hard that all the options are sinful.

Frame writes, “So I must
conclude that there are no tragic moral choices, no conflicts of duties.”23

I agree with this position. I
think this is significant, because I am concerned that in today’s evangelical
Christian world, too often such carefully constructed “hard cases” are used as
a wedge to open the door a crack, to get people to admit that there are some
situations where it is morally right (and acceptable to God!) to disobey one of
God’s commands in Scripture. This was essentially the position of Joseph
Fletcher, whose 1966 book Situation Ethics24 constructed all sorts of “hard
cases” in which a person supposedly had to lie, or murder, or commit adultery,
or steal, in order to act follow the greater principle of “love” for others
(that is, to do good for others).

But such reasoning from “hard cases” quickly leads to easy
rationalization for many other sins. It is easy for people to progress from (1)
it is sometimes right to lie to preserve a human life to (2) it is right to lie
when it does more good than harm to (3) it is right to lie when you think it
will bring a good result to (4) it is sometimes right to break other commands
of the Bible when it will do more good than harm. The end result is a terribly
weak personal ethical system that lacks any backbone, that ignores the commands
of Scripture, and that simply seeks to bring about good results by whatever
means (without getting caught). The whole system can slide quickly to moral
relativism.

Grudem’s summary is simplistic:

i) Every obligation isn’t
equally or simultaneously obligatory.

ii) One prima facie obligation
can come into conflict with another prima facie obligation.

Jesus healing on the Sabbath
illustrates both principles.

iii) As a matter of fact,
ethics does confront us with borderline cases.

iv) There’s a difference
between choosing between the lesser of two “evils” and the lesser of two
“wrongs.” Christians should never do wrong. But the lesser of two “evils” is
not synonymous with moral evil.

When considering this
“situational perspective” for an ethical question, we need to ask what results
will come from a given action. If
a person lies (even to protect life), several results will follow:

(1) The other person’s life might or might not be preserved.
But we cannot be sure that different actions (silence, or giving other answers)
would not have also preserved life (especially if we trust in God’s sovereign
control over situations).

No, we can’t be sure of the
outcome. But responsible decision-making includes considering the likely
consequences of our actions, to the best of our knowledge. Not all
uncertainties are equally uncertain. Not all consequences are equally
consequential. For instance, there can be a greater risk of a lesser harm or a
lesser risk of a greater harm.

(2) God will be dishonored, because a human being who is in
God’s image, and who represents God on the earth, has told a lie and thus
represented his Creator as a liar.

Given the phenomenon of divine
deception in Scripture, the logic is reversible.

(3) People will begin to think of the person who lied as (at
least sometimes) a liar, someone whose words cannot always be trusted.

If always telling the truth
means you betray a confidence, then that will send the same message.

(4) The moral character of the person who lied will be
eroded, because in a difficult situation he failed to obey the biblical
commands against lying.

That begs the question.

(5) It will become easier to lie in the future, because once
a person thinks it is right to lie in some circumstances, this will seem to be
an easy solution in additional circumstances, and the person’s lying will
become more frequent.

That’s like saying, if you kill
in self-defense, that makes it easier to kill in the future. Even if that’s the
case, so what?

(6) The act of lying may be imitated by others, multiplying
these results in other situations.

If you have good reason to lie,
then they should emulate your example in comparable situations. People need to
learn moral discrimination. An ability to draw relevant distinctions, rather
than applying a single rote principle to every issue.

97% of
scientists accept some form of evolution (there must be something wrong with
them)

A few
days ago I posted the main bullet points for the lecture I gave at the
Evangelical Theological Society on April 6. Some of the responses perpetuate
common yet unconvincing lines of defense.

For
example, I began my talk by saying that I accept the scientific consensus as a
staring point when discussing the question of human origins.

A
response I have heard–more times than I care to recall, and that I knew would
likely come again even though I think I was super clear in my lecture–is, “Aha.
See! If you start with science, of course you’re going to end up with
evolution. And that’s your problem. You put too much faith in science instead
of in the Bible.”

“Faith in
science” suggests that one’s view of scientific matters is on the same sort of
playing field as “faith in the Bible,” which then gives a sort of rhetorical
oomph to the posed choice. But I don’t have ”faith in science.” I have made a
conscious, intellectual decision to accept the overwhelming consensus of
demonstrably knowledgable and trained scientists across the world and for
several generations.

For now
I’ll just make one elementary observation: the fact that you’re a “scientist”
doesn’t mean you are qualified to assess the scientific merits of a theory that falls outside your field of expertise. To take a trivial
example, if my car is malfunctioning, I take it to an automechanic, not a
phlebotomist. So the 97% figure is bogus.

My
starting point for how I handle this issue of Adam is twofold: (1) I accept the
overwhelming scientific consensus concerning evolution, and (2) our
considerable knowledge ofhow
ancient stories of origins functioned. These factors affect how we read the
Adam story and they cannot be dismissed or marginalized.

From an
exegetical standpoint, why would his belief in evolution affect how he reads
Gen 2? Isn’t a major rationale of the grammatico-historical method to guard
against anachronistic interpretations? Surely reinterpreting Gen 2 in light of
evolution defies the outlook of the narrator and his target audience.

It
strains credulity to think that, of all ancient peoples with origins stories,
Israel alone escaped this story-telling mentality and gave us something
approximating “history” or “science” in the modern sense.

i) This
is unintentionally comical. Notice how he poses the question. Basically, he’s
asking, what are the chances that Scripture beat the odds?

What
this ignores is a little thing called divine inspiration. It was never a
question of whether Israel would naturally resist cultural misconceptions.

Of
course, Enns denies the inspiration of Scripture. My point is that he isn’t
even considering the inspiration of Scripture for the sake of argument. He
doesn’t bother to address the obvious counterargument to his objection. So his
objection is a straw man.

The
tensions between evolution and evangelicalism are real and cannot be “fixed” by
simply “grafting” evolution onto evangelicalism. The two most common ways of
doing that are by (1) making Adam and Eve into a pair of hominids chosen by God
to be the “first,” and (2) making Adam and Eve a “gene pool” of the earliest
hominid group, according to genetic studies.

Both of
these options fail because they are ad hoc, i.e., made up to support a position
once wishes to maintain. A more spiritually and intellectually satisfying way
forward is to leave aside ad hoc explanations and take a more exploratory,
dialogical approach to solving the issue.

I agree
with him. However, his own “Incarnational” model/Israel=Adam compromise is
equally ad hoc.

Neither
literalism nor inerrancy should be given the status of default positions of
orthodoxy. They are themselves theories of how the Bible works that are as open
to scrutiny as any.

As
scholars like Warfield have documented, this is based on the self-witness of
Scripture.

Inerrancy
in particular has a difficult time accounting for how the Bible looks so
“untended” and “misbehaved” by inerrantist standards.

That’s
an odd statement. Does Scripture looks so “untended” and “misbehaved” by
inerrantist standards. Enns is clearly judging the appearance of Scripture by
his own standards, not inerrantist standards.

Speaking
for myself, Scripture looks the way I’d expect an inspired communication to
look which was revealed in the idioms of the receptor culture. What we call the
organic theory of inspiration.

An
incarnational model of Scripture, though hardly the last word, is a better way
of accounting for how the Bible behaves than an inerrantist model…

A
well-rounded approach to addressing the Adam issue is the metaphor of a
trialogue of three voices: historical context, canonical context, and Christian
tradition. None of these voices is dominant or the judge over the others,
including “Christian tradition.”

The
historical context includes ancient origins stories that “calibrate” how
Genesis and Paul should be read. The canonical context is three levels:
exegetical, Old Testament, and New Testament, and each adds its own complex of
issues to the discussion. Christian tradition refers to the various Christian
iterations of the gospel, all of which are provisional, not the final word on
the gospel. (Fleshing out the “trialogue” metaphor was probably the longest
section of the paper and it brought in a lot of issues I discuss in my book.)

So the
canonical context, which Enns defines as how Scripture itself understands the
historicity of Adam, shouldn’t be dominant or the judge over the other two?

Two
things were clear to me as the day progressed: (1) Evangelicalism has a number
of big questions ahead of it for addressing evolution, and I am not sure the
evangelical system is designed to move forward without a lot of soul searching
and discomfort.

The
Origin of Species was published in 1859. So, no, this is not ahead of us, but
behind us. It’s not as if Bible-believing Christians haven’t addressed this
issue before.

On the one hand, “Pope Francis” Bergoglio is “reluctant to call himself pope”, preferring to be called the more “humble” title, “Bishop of Rome”:

He still goes by "Bergoglio" when speaking to friends, seems reluctant to call himself pope and has decided to live in the Vatican hotel rather than the grand papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace.

It might seem as if Pope Francis is in a bit of denial over his new job as leader of the world's 1.2-billion Catholics. Or perhaps he's simply changing the popular idea of what it means to be pope, keeping the no-frills style he cultivated as archbishop of Buenos Aires in ways that may have broad implications for the church.

The world has already seen how Francis has cast aside many trappings of the papacy, refusing to don the red velvet cape Benedict XVI wore for official occasions and keeping the simple, iron-plated pectoral cross he used as bishop and archbishop...

I’d like to make an additional point. From what I’ve read,
bears (especially grizzly bears and polar bears) have no natural fear of man
(Black bears aren’t as large or aggressive, although they are not to be trifled
with.). When the white man starting pushing into grizzly bear and polar bear
territory, the bears attacked humans without hesitation.

But back then, human settlers had no compunctions about
shooting bears. And bears aren’t stupid. It didn’t take them long to figure out
that humans were dangerous. At that point, many bears would flee when they
sensed the presence of humans.

BTW, I’m not saying these areas were uninhabited. But
Indians with bows and arrows weren’t much of a match for a charging grizzly
bear.

However, now that we’re protecting bears from humans rather
than protecting humans from bears, I expect there will be more bear-maulings
because bears will revert. Lose their acquired fear of humans.

And, of course, this isn’t confined to bears. It also
applies to other major predators like wolves and cougars.

BTW, I think all animal rights fanatics should be put in a
cage overnight with a wolf or grizzly bear.